Dead Man’s Daughter. Roz Watkins

know it’s hard but the sooner we get onto it, the better.’

      Rachel shifted away from me slightly, but still kept a little distance between herself and Abbie. ‘I told you someone was following me.’ She sniffed and wiped her face with a tissue.

      Abbie leant her head against the side of the van, eyes closed, red-smeared blonde hair spilling over the back of her seat. I wanted to get her cleaned up and warmed up and generally looked after. But I’d been told that sensitive kid-people were on their way to handle this, and to make sure we didn’t lose any evidence in the process.

      Rachel ran blood-stained fingers through her own dark hair. Mascara seemed to bruise her cheeks.

      ‘Can we talk outside?’ I said.

      She nodded. We left Abbie in the van, being looked after by the paramedics, and walked along a path leading away from the house and into the woods.

      The ground was so cold I could feel it through the thin soles of my trainers, and the air was icy and seemed more solid than usual. I remembered Abbie’s feet stepping through the freezing stream and hoped the paramedics had made sure she was okay.

      ‘So, tell me about this person who was following you.’

      Rachel breathed in shakily, and swallowed. ‘No one took it seriously. I told your people but they didn’t care.’

      ‘Do you know who it was?’

      We walked slowly, Rachel shuffling as if her feet were numb. ‘I never saw them properly. I only caught glimpses and sensed someone looking at me when I went outside or walked in the woods.’ She sniffed and wiped her face. ‘Once I even thought someone was following us when we went out in the car.’

      ‘Can you remember what type of car they were in?’

      She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘It’s okay. You’re doing really well.’

      She ground to a standstill and looked down at her feet. ‘How am I supposed to cope? I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through this.’

      There was no answer to that. A woman in her forties, with a young child, her husband gone. I didn’t know how she was supposed to cope.

      ‘There’s a bench,’ I said. ‘If you’re not too cold. Shall we sit a moment?’

      ‘I’m not cold. I don’t feel anything. I could walk into a frozen lake and I’d feel nothing.’

      We walked to the bench, which was in the clearing with the statues I’d seen earlier.

      ‘Do the woods belong to you?’ I asked. ‘And the statues?’

      She glanced at them and let out her breath. Nodded slowly. ‘Horrible things.’

      ‘Are they old?’

      ‘Victorian, I think.’

      A plaque was attached to the nearest statue’s base. I leant forward to read it. For the weak and the poor who died for the strong and the rich. How depressing.

      I glanced at Rachel. She was shaky but seemed to be coping. ‘Just a few more questions. Is that okay?’

      ‘I suppose so.’ She stared ahead, as still as one of the statues. ‘I don’t think it’s sunk in.’

      ‘Thank you. We can go back to Abbie in a moment. But do you remember when you first noticed you were being followed?’ I was careful not to say, When you thought you were being followed, or anything that implied she might have been mistaken.

      ‘A few months ago. I wondered if it was something to do with Phil’s job. He’s a social worker, and sometimes the parents of the kids can get nasty. But Phil didn’t think it was that.’

      I twisted to sit sideways on the bench, so I could look at her. ‘Who did he think it was?’

      She paused and her eyes went glassy. When she spoke, her throat sounded tight. ‘I don’t think he even believed me. He thought I was imagining it. Ironically.’ She twisted her mouth into an almost-smile, and fiddled with her wedding ring, rotating it on her finger. ‘But he’s been odd recently. He disappeared a few times and didn’t tell me where he was going. And he’s been a bit secretive.’ She sat up straighter, and some life came back into her, as if thinking about her husband’s strange behaviour was dulling her pain. She took a deep breath and turned to look at me. ‘I do love him though. I really love him.’

      ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks. And I need to know where you were this morning.’

      She fished a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose loudly. ‘That other detective already asked me. I stayed at Mum’s. It had been arranged for ages. Phil and Abbie came home and I stayed on a couple more days to help Mum with sorting out some stuff. Wills and things.’

      It was one of the most painful things about these investigations. This woman was sitting next to me on a freezing bench with her life splintering apart. Although I could only sense the jagged edges of it, I knew her pain. And yet a part of me was assessing her. Wondering if she could have done it. If she was the one who’d plunged that knife into her husband’s neck. ‘So, you were at your mother’s last night, but you came home this morning?’

      ‘Yes. When I’m away, Phil and I always talk in the morning. And he didn’t answer, and he wasn’t responding to texts. So, well, I wasn’t exactly panicking because he and Abbie are both on these sleeping pills and he can sleep late, but I had a bad feeling. So I came back. And then when I got back, I found you and . . . ’

      I waited but she didn’t carry on.

      ‘Where does your mother live?’

      ‘A couple of miles past Matlock. Not far.’

      ‘And did you drive straight from your mother’s to your house this morning?’

      She hesitated. ‘I got petrol in Matlock. You can check that.’

      That suspicious part of me felt something. Something deep inside that my boss would dismiss as a hunch, but that I knew was based on years of experience and observation. Something my subconscious mind had translated into a twitching in my stomach. Her responses weren’t quite right.

      ‘So, when you saw me, had you come straight from your mother’s, apart from getting petrol?’

      She touched her throat. ‘I told you that. It took a while though, with the traffic. Do you think Abbie was there when . . . She’s really sleepy. She doesn’t remember. She’s on these pills for her night terrors. But she must have . . . what? Seen the killer? Or wandered through to our room and found Phil . . . ’

      ‘How old’s Abbie?’

      ‘Ten. She’s small for her age.’

      I waited a moment, feeling the cold air in my nostrils. The wind whispered through the trees, and I could hear the river in the distance. ‘What pills is she on?’

      ‘Sleeping pills. I can show you.’

      A ten-year-old on pills. I knew in the US the drug companies had achieved the holy grail of pills for all – old or young, sick or well. But in this country, sleeping pills for a kid was unusual.

      ‘And . . . why did you realise something was badly wrong?’ I said. ‘When you saw my car, I mean. You seemed very upset and worried.’

      Rachel turned her body away from me and spoke as if to someone sitting on her opposite side. ‘I just knew.’ She blew her nose again.

      All the birdsong and rustling of the trees and the rushing river seemed far away. The woods were quiet around us, as if muted by the presence of the stone girls.

      ‘What’s the story behind the statues?’ I asked.

      ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some ancient folk tale or something. Phil was obsessed with them but he always denied it.’

      ‘I